Dragon Boys
Some Chinese Canadian film and television personnel even threatened to boycott the miniseries. One of the changes made to accommodate Asian Canadians more was the omission of the character of a Caucasian police chief; it was decided that going with a white boss would be counter-productive to the story, and a senior Asian Canadian officer was added instead to add complexity to the script. Despite the content of the miniseries, the writer and the director are both Caucasian. as means of escape. Before filming for the miniseries began, Mann spent several weeks with Richmond s RCMP detectives to prepare for the role.He also worked with some in the Chinese community during the script s writing, checking to see what worked and what didn t. Steph Song (who plays Chavy Pahn) found that to be an advantage, in contrast to the alleged racism accusations made by the Chinese Canadian community before it aired.
Jason soon receives help, but from a Chinese-Canadian youth with gang connections. Song claimed that if the miniseries was written and directed by Chinese Canadians, there would be too much sympathy on the part of the Asian characters, and that the truth about the Asian drug dealing industry would not have been exposed in an adequate manner. The film was filmed in the Vancouver, Richmond. Some scenes were shot at one of the malls within the Golden Village, Parker Place. Partly due to the setting of the miniseries, some of the songs on the series soundtrack were performed by Asian Canadian musicians from Richmond. .
Dragon Boys (Chinese: 龍在他鄉) is a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) miniseries starring Eric Tsang, Byron Mann, Lawrence Chou, Tzi Ma, Lauren Lee Smith, Steph Song, Darryl Quon, Christina Ma, Jean Yoon, Simon Wong and Chang Tseng of 2007. The film focuses on several stories about Asian Canadian organized gangs, set mostly in Vancouver Another story focuses on the Wahs, an immigrant family from China. The parents in that family (played by real life husband and wife Tzi Ma and Christina Ma) are concerned about their son Jason (played by Wong), who is constantly the victim of racial bullying.
Besides that, a year was spent researching Asian Canadian gangs in the Vancouver area, in cooperation with the RCMP. In addition, the series writer Ian Weir immersed himself in Asian Canadian and Asian American culture before writing the script. They attempt a robbery but fail, and Jason is forced to flee for his life while his father Henry tries to save him. The third story is about an illegal Cambodian immigrant named Chavy Pahn (Steph Song) who comes to Vancouver to seek a modelling career but is instead trapped in Canada with no friends, no passport and a $30,000 debt.
According to CBC executives, the producers of the miniseries have been given permission to start a sequel to Dragon Boys. However, the viewership numbers fell short of expectations on the first night, with approximately 383,000 viewers. Before the miniseries aired, there was concern from the Chinese Canadian community about possible backlash from other communities; the villains in the miniseries are predominantly Asian Canadian, leading to possibly racist implications. This resulted in some of the tongue-in-cheek references made about Chinese stereotypes by some of the characters, such as Jiang, in the miniseries. The critical response for Dragon Boys have been overwhelmingly positive, in large part due to its depth and realism resulting from the performances of the internationally-based cast from Hong Kong, Canada and the United States.
